Visitors to Arches National Park make the hike to and from Delicate Arch, one of the park’s most popular attractions, on Sunday, Sept. 19, 2021. Photo: Spenser Heaps, Deseret News.
A new study from the CDC found that Utah ranks at the top for residents who are physically active outside of working hours.
Just under 82% of Utahns reported participating in movement outside of work. It’s possible Utah’s abundance of hiking trails, access to the outdoors, and winter sports accounts for the high level of activity reported by those surveyed in the data.
The study used self-reported data collected through phone surveys in 49 states, Washington D.C., and the territories of Guam and Puerto Rico. New Jersey was the only state where data was not collected. The data was combined from several years of collection, from 2017 to 2020.
The data collected from these 52 jurisdictions showed that, on average, 25% of the population were inactive.
Colorado was the only state that ranked higher than Utah for rates of activity. The highest prevalence of inactivity was in Puerto Rico with almost 50% reporting no level of movement outside of their job.